Who first said "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"?

Search: all work and no play

Why: I guess, like an idiot, I assumed it originated in The Shining, but in "Downton Abbey" (I'm on board), in an episode set in 1913:

Mary: You know what all work and no play did for Jack.
Matthew: You think I'm a dull boy anyway, don't you.

Answer: The sentiment is so old that nobody is sure who said it first! In 2400 BC Egypt, the sage Ptahhotep wrote something that some people think* is related to the proverb:

One that reckoneth accounts all the day passeth not a happy moment. One that gladdeneth his heart all the day provideth not for his house. The bowman hitteth the mark, as the steersman reacheth land, by diversity of aim.

(*I don't see it.)

In English, the first recording is from 1659 in James Howell's Proverbs in English, Italian, French, and Spanish and in his Paroimiographia the same year.

In 1825, Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth expanded the proverb:

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,
All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.

She's from Clever-Clever Land. So are the businessmen who say things like:

All work and no play makes jack - and plenty of it.

Source: Phrases.org.uk, Wikipedia

The More You Know: The phrase also appears in a billion other things I've seen or read, like:

• "Araby" by James Joyce (1914)
  
• Big Sur by Jack Kerouac (1962)
  
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• "The Simpsons," "Treehouse of Horror V" (1994), kinda
  

Share

Do giraffes have horns?

Search: giraffe horn

Why: Corbett has a screensaver on her TV (wut) that is a stylized slideshow of jungle animals. One looks something like this:

What are those things?

Answer: Sorta! They used to, anyway (says Science). Giraffes are in the scientific group Pecora, which also comprises cattle, sheep, goats, antelope, and deer - all of whom have antlers.

Antlers are made of protrusions of bone which are shed and regrown each year.

The things that giraffes have, however, aren't antlers, but permanent outcroppings of cartilage called ossicones. They are in different places on the skull than antlers usually are, and they are permanently covered in both skin and fur (whereas antler velvet wears off over time). Giraffes are born with them. In evolutionary biology, this kind of thing is called a spandrel, an adaptation that once served to support some other function. In this case, the ossicones would have supported the antlers.

The way science sees it, male giraffes used to be like their antelope and deer cousins with antlers up top. They used them during mating season to fight and show dominance.

The thing is that giraffes got taller and their necks grew so long that it wouldn't have been good for them to go bashing their heads into each other anymore. (In the meantime, some extinct forms of giraffes like sivatheres had both long necks and horns:

Maybe that's why they're extinct.)

So now, since they don't have antlers up top, giraffes use these little horns at the backs of their heads to bash into each other.

They sort of wrap their necks around each other like so and go apeshit.

It's kind of embarrassing.

Source: White Souse, All Experts, Wikipedia

The More You Know: I just want to show you this awesome carousel at Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the Dodo Manège. All the animals on it are endangered or extinct! Sivathere:

Keep your eyes peeled for a dodo and a meiolaniid and an elephant bird!

Share

What is the medical term for "dry heaving"?

Search: dry heave

Why: It's a topic close to my heart / esophagus, because maybe I puked as recently as yesterday. In 6 Weird Signs That You're Way Too Stressed Out:

Dry-heaving (or retching, in medical terminology) is one way that stress can rear its ugly head, more often as a sign of anxiety.

What! Surely not, no. It's much too onomatopoeic.

Answer: "Retching"! Get serious! Doctors be cray cray.

Retching is the reverse movement (peristalsis) of the stomach and esophagus without vomiting. Sometimes this is called the dry heaves.

But maybe it is an onomatopoeia. It comes from

• Lithuanian imitative kregeti, "to grunt"
• German khrækijanan, "to clear one's throat"
  
• Old English hraca, "phlegm" - and hræcan "to cough up"

Oh, retroactive warning: Chandler, don't read this.

Source: eMedicineHealth, EtymOnline

The More You Know: I couldn't find medical terms for "throat clearing" or "lump in the throat." Maybe someday, science can come up with a solution. Ahem.

Share

Where did Big Ben get its (his?) name?

Search: big ben

Why: On reddit, You won't find the answers at the bottom of a wine glass:

That's Prague, but that clock there is reminding me of that other clock.

Answer: No one is sure, not even Parliament! But there are two theories:

• It was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, First Commissioner for Works, whose name was [allegedly] inscribed on the first bell.
• It was named after Ben Caunt, a champion heavyweight boxer of the 1850s.

Big Ben is the bell, by the way - not the clock (which is the Great Clock) nor the tower (which is the Clock Tower). Officially, Big Ben is called the Great Bell. It first tolled July 11th, 1859.

Source: Parliament.uk

The More You Know: Some facts compiled by Diamond Geezer:

• The Clock Tower is 11 storeys high. There are 334 steps up to the belfry. There is no lift.
• Each clock face is made up of 312 pieces of opal glass.
• Each dial is just over 7m in diameter, and is cleaned once every five years by abseiling technicians.
• The tip of the minute hand travels approximately 190km each year.

Share

Is the song in "Never Let Me Go" for real?

Search: judy bridgewater

Why: We watched the movie last week, and the very next day, I received the audiobook in my mailbox. How Kathy H. acquires the tape is a bit different this time around, but here's what she says about it:

The album's called Songs After Dark and it's by Judy Bridgewater.
What made the tape so special for me was this one particular song: track number three, 'Never Let Me Go'.
It's slow and late night and American, and there's a bit that keeps coming round when Judy sings: 'Never let me go ... Oh baby, baby ... Never let me go ..."

There's some other stuff about how she's sitting at a bar in a purple dress with a cigarette, but it's not on Google Books, so you will just have to imagine it.

Answer: No! Well, it's a real song, but Judy Bridgewater isn't real, and the song isn't... "real." In fact, the version in the book isn't even the same as the one in the movie. The one in the book has lots of business about a "baby" (and Kathy H. dances to it pretending to hold a baby - one she can never have), but the one in the film is all about saying "never (never) never (never)" and so on.

Hmm? But as a promotional thing, the studio sent out thumb drives shaped like cassette tapes with this on the clever:

Source: The Star

The More You Know: Coincidences(?) of note:

• Never Let Me Go author Kazuo Ishigiro is a fan of American jazz singer Stacey Kent, and even wrote 4 songs for her 2007 album Breakfast On The Morning Tram, which also includes a song called "Never Let Me Go" (though Ishiguro didn't write that one - it's an old song - and it's also not the one in the book / film).
• The "Never Let Me Go" in the movie was written by Luther Dixon, who also wrote "Sixteen Candles" and "Mama Said."
• Judy Bridgewater is posing like the woman on the cover of Bringing It All Back Home (1965) by Bob Dylan, who - in the 70s - regularly sang with Joan Baez a song called "Never Let Me Go."

Share

What's the Road to Damascus?

Search: road to damascus

Why: In The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (our very first Book Club book, and Orlando just confessed he is way behind in it):

Michael Zipperstein had come to Brown thirty-two yeas earlier as a New Critic. He'd inculcated the habits of close reading and biography-free interpretation into three generations of students before taking a Road to Damascus sabbatical, in Paris, in 1975, where he'd met Roland Barthes at a dinner party and been converted, over cassoulet, to the new faith.

It's one of those things that I see all the time, but I don't know what it means. I live in a whirled I don't even understand.

Answer: It's the road that Saul the Christkiller was on when he realized he wanted to be Paul the Apostle! Pre-Damascus Expy, Saul hated Christians and generally just wanted all of them dead. He even voted to stone Stephen, the first Christian martyr. He was headed to Damascus to do some good ol' persecuting when suddenly, he was enveloped by a bright light!

He fell to the ground and heard a voice say, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Who could it be?

I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Wait, what?

Anyway, that day on that long and winding road, Saul's life took a great big turn. He converted - he was no longer Saul the Destroyer to Paul the Spreader of Good News, eventually suffering persecution of his own. He wrote lots of words that are in the New Testament, and he also taught us that what you hate today may be something you love tomorrow. Kind of like my journey with avocados.

Luv u

In lit'rature, a "road to Damascus" can represent a religious conversion or a profound change in attitude or belief. Damascus is the capital Syria.

Source: Daily Bible Study, Double-Tongued

The More You Know: But what o what is cassoulet? It's a bean stew or casserole! It has meat in it, usually pork. Make your own.

Share

Why is Rock Paper Scissors also called Roshambo?

Search: roshambo

Why: Somebody said it on the teevee last night. I can't be sure who.

Answer: It's named after Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau! Whom? Why, the commander-in-chief of the French Expeditionary Force who helped George Washington and the Continental Army during the American Revolution! What a pal! But the thing is that nobody really knows why "Rock Paper Scissors" is associated with him. Oh well. Maybe it's just that his name has 3 syllables.

So instead of the real answer, here are some facts & theories about the origins of Rock Paper Scissors:

• The first written record of the game is from 200 BC in Japan, where the name is Jan-ken-pon (or just Jan-ken). Ken means "fist."
• Or it actually originated in the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 CE), called Shoushiling.
• The "game" (wut? it's not a game!) is based on 2 older games:

San sukumi ken, something about "the freezing aspects of a snake, frog, and slug with fear"

Su ken, a numbers+competing game with fingers, maybe just like the ancient Greek / Roman game Morra)

• It started in Africa, where early man invented tools.
• It was an ancient Scandinavian pastime that spread to Europe.
• It was a traditional Celtic game that spread to Europe in the 6th century BC via settlers in Portugal, where it was called Pihedra, Papelsh e Tijhera.

Source: The Straight Dope, Wikipedia

The More You Know: Some variations on RPS:

• In Japan - chief of village, (kills) tiger, (eats) mother of chief (beats chief)
• In Indonesia - elephant, (crushes) person, (crushes) ant (crawls in elephant's ear and drives it crazy)
• In Myanmar - general, gun, raising hands
• In Vietnam - hammer, nail, wrapping

Also! this creature called the side-blotched lizard has this weird mating behavior that peeps call the "rock-paper-scissors strategy." The boy lizards are either orange, yellow, or blue, and it plays out like this with the ladies:

• Orange-throated males are the biggest, blue-throated the middle, and yellow-throated the smallest.

• Orange ones beat blue.
• Blue beats yellow.
• Yellow ones are small and their coloring mimics that of females. While the orange ones are fighting the blue ones, the yellow ones sneak in and steal their wimmens away!

NSFW.

Share

I want to see a picture of Grace Kelly's bridesmaids

Search: grace kelly wedding

Why: Valerie posted this: "Closing Bridal Store, Priscilla of Boston, Spray Paints Designer Gowns and Outrages Women"

Priscilla of Boston, a designer wedding dress shop owned by David's Bridal that once outfitted Grace Kelly's bridesmaids, is closing all 19 locations after 65 years, and they have lots of gowns to dispose of. But rather than donating them to a good cause or taking them to sample sales, the Edina, Minnesota store employees spray-painted the expensive gowns pink and threw them in the trash so no one could wear them.

Rude.*

Answer: Here they are!

Nice hats, ladies. It was 1956. She never acted again.

Princess Grace's wedding dress was designed by Academy Award–winning costumer Helen Rose, who also designed for Betty Grable, Judy Garland, Carmen Miranda, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, and Marilyn Monroe for films in the 1940s-50s - and Elizabeth Taylor for 2 films and one real-life wedding (to Conrad Hilton, Jr., her first husband of 7 / first wedding of 8).

Real wedding / fake wedding

Source: Google Images

The More You Know: Were you also curious about Grace's bridesmaids wearing such a light color? They weren't just summer whites. Some bridesmaid history:

The Western bridesmaid tradition is thought to have originated from Roman Law, which required ten witnesses at a wedding in order to outsmart evil spirits (believed to attend marriage ceremonies) by dressing in identical clothing to the bride and groom, so that the evil spirits would not know who was getting married. In Victorian wedding photographs, the bride and groom are frequently dressed in the same fashion as other members of the bridal party.

Men still do that.

*The store said: "Priscilla of Boston has always donated quality bridal gowns to a variety of charitable causes. We do not, however, donate unsaleable dresses that are damaged, soiled or in otherwise poor condition." Then they destroyed the dresses. The also said, "It had something to do with the contracts with the labels." A retail analyst theorized: "For some retailers, they're really concerned with their merchandise getting counterfeited, so that's one reason why they would want to go ahead and destroy these items." A few dresses survived, and David's Bridal agreed to donate them to their 'charitable partners.' Womp womp.

Share

What's the origin of the term 'hat trick'?

Search: hat trick

Why: We were watching some show on the Food Network, and I think Rachael Ray said something about cooking a "hat trick." I was like

but not really, because I don't really know what it means. All I know is that in my first soccer game ever (c. 1994) I scored a hat trick... and also a 4th goal. You're welcome, MJCC Girls 10 & Under Rec Team.

Answer: It comes from cricket! The OED says:

The feat of a bowler who takes three wickets by three successive balls: originally considered to entitled him to be presented by his club with a new hat or some equivalent.

Lol, "takes three wickets." Get out of here, cricket. In 1858, player H.H. Stephenson took 3 wickets in 3 balls in Sheffield.

A collection was held for Stephenson (as was customary for outstanding feats by professionals) and he was presented with a cap or hat bought with the proceeds.

Look at those chops on front-n-center.

Anyhoo, hockey players / teams / fans / announcers adopted the term from cricketery.

In the 1940s, a Toronto haberdasher used to give Maple Leaf hockey players free hats when they scored three goals in a game.

But mostly, fans just throw throw hats onto the ice. In the early 20th century, this was especially nice to see because a classier breed of men wore classier hats. These are from a long time ago:

Nowadays, they usually donate the gross cast-offs to charity.

Source: Ask! Yahoo, WiseGeek, Wikipedia

The More You Know: On an unrelated note, Aaron Carter was also on the Foot Network show where Rachael Ray was talking, and I'm just gonna throw it out there that I do not believe that he likes girls more than he likes boys.

^ I don't know why that thing had to have 100 spaces before and after it, but it did. Sry.

Share

What's a doubting Thomas?

Search: doubting Thomas

Why: In The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides:

"Mitchell," Phyllida continued, "with your interest in religious studies, I'd think India would be a perfect fit. They've got everything. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jains, Buddhists. It's like Baskin Robbins! I've always been fascinated by religion. Unlike my doubting-Thomas husband.

Answer: Someone who needs proof! It comes from the Apostle Thomas, aka Didymus Thomas or "Thomas the Twin," who required physical proof of Jesus' Resurrection before he would believe it.

When Jesus reappeared and had Thomas touch his wounds, Thomas became the first person to explicitly acknowledge Jesus' divinity, saying "My Lord and my God."

Source: Phrases, Cliches, Expressions & Sayings, AnandTech

The More You Know: Due to his name, some people think Thomas was Jesus' twin.

• Greek Didymus: In the Gospel of John ^{[11:16] [20:24]} Thomas is more specifically identified as "Thomas, also called the Twin (Didymus)."
• Aramaic Tau'ma: The name "Thomas" comes from the Aramaic T'oma, "twin" (תאומא).

Or maybe he was the twin of Judas. Who knows.

Share